In a way, this reads as a bigger mea culpa than Matt's essay on Biden's age. For a long time, one of Matt's serious contentions was the lack of policy discussion in Republican party politics distinguishes it from the Democratic party's intellectual internal politics. Now his stance is that Harris' contribution to policy discourse in 2020 involved ideas so actively harmful to American voters that it would be better to not have any of this in the first place. It's good to see someone change his mind, but it's a big shift and I think readers in the comments (and a few critics like DeBoer) are underrating it.
It is very state dependent. You can see from the USDA “SNAP Work Requirements” page that the language is not geared toward career counseling or education or the long term but purely on how to meet the 80 hours per month work/work equivalent requirement, which can include unpaid or volunteer work..
Some states are very restrictive about educational activities being permitted for waiver purposes - but overall the federal policy is not focused on a career path or meaningful work, per se.
Harris will not win unless she can say, and honestly mean it, that every conservative has a valid point about how their lives have been affected, negatively, by Progressive policies and ideas. And, further, that a huge percentage of Progressives look down their noses at conservatives.
Adopt Trump's views and Vance's views. they are responding to deep and valid hurts that 50% of Americans experience. Don't trash them. That only sends the same message that the Progressives care about other people, but not them.
As soon as Trump and Vance say and honestly mean that all American lives have been negatively affected by Conservative policies and ideas. Or do you have some theory as to why Progressive harm is real and Conservative harm is not?
Joe--if you read the Brooks article, pay particular attention to the comments. They display a horrible view of conservative voters. Full of hostility. Not one bit of understanding of them. So different from how Democrats used to see them, and respect them.
Finally, we have driven all over Trump country in the past 12 years, camping and hiking. Drive through those towns, and you see the despair from a world that no longer values men making livings for their families with their backs.
Trump voters see the advantages Progressives' children, who often go to expensive private schools, have over theirs.
Trump voters, usually not the elites with plenty of money, are hurting. And yet, over and over they are looked down upon as rubes, violent-prone, gun-toting, idiots. This is what Progressives have done to the Democratic party. We used to advocate for and support people who are hurting because of our societal rules.
Democrats respected Republicans when Republicans were respectable. You are (and God knows David Brooks has made a career of) conflating economic, cultural and political phenomena into a desperate narrative that searches for some reason (any reason) to blame "progressive" politics for all the worlds' problems. I too have spent a lot of time in rural America and have plenty of Republican friends and relatives. I can assure you that "looking down" on others is not an exclusively "progressive" activity. Indeed, for decades the right wing has used multiple cable and talk radio networks to do almost nothing but tell ridiculous lies in the purplest prose about "liberals" and "progressives". This ocean of bile has washed away institutions that once protected and unified people across political divides, including most notably churches and civic institutions that were politics-free zones. This was not "conservatives" being victimized by "liberals", it was Republicans (egged on by Libertarians) deliberately choosing hatred as a political strategy. It was Roger Ailes understanding and then selling to 70s era right-wingers the very specific idea that rural and working class hesitation about the civil rights movement, the womens liberation movement and eventually the gay rights movement could be harnessed, turned into resentment, then anger, then hatred and then used to make money and win elections. And the right wing has never looked back. The strategy has been and forever will be "when in doubt, blame everything bad on 'liberals'," then confuse people with hand-wavy abstractions when it comes time to do the actual accounting for which policies had what effect. It was not "progressives" who created the China shock that moved millions of manufacturing jobs out of the midwest. That was Republican business owners. It's the progressive wing of the Democratic party that wanted to slow the process down to protect workers. It's also the progressive wing that wants to re-industrialize these areas with investments in all manner of green industry and energy production. It's not progressives' fault that the deep south and parts of the plains have firearm mortality rates 3x-5x higher than California or New York, or that the highest rates of drug overdose mortality are in states bordering the Ohio River. Right wing media knows this, so rather than trying to address the issues honestly, it will run nonstop content about a homeless person pooping on the street in San Francisco or a drag queen reading a book (!!) to children, because surely that must be the root of the opioid crisis and de-industrialization... It's so predictable, so counterproductive and so tiresome. If you read the German Lopez piece you will understand his point (following Hochschild) that the resentment of white people about other races "cutting in line" is a statistical delusion -- a failure to distinguish between the phenomenon of de-industrialization / globalization impacting some sectors of the economy and economic growth in other sectors. Asian American men have not seen spectacular median wage growth as white male wages have stagnated somewhat because of some kind of progressive "trick". Median wages for women of all races have not climbed faster than median wages for men because "the world no longer values men making livings for their families." That's pure drivel. I defy you to find any mention from any mainstream American progressive (Bernie, Warren, AOC, etc.) or any mainstream liberal of any era (Biden, Obama, Clinton) that makes any argument remotely related to that absurdity. What we are witnessing is a generations-long transition of the economy from modes of production dominated by men to modes of production in which physical strength and stamina are simply not as important. Women are even more capable of competing with men in these arenas, and they are winning. Women are getting college educations and advanced degrees at higher rates, they are entering the managerial and professional ranks in greater numbers, and the "conservative" solution is... what? Slow them down and put them back in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant so men won't feel bad about themselves? Never going to happen until JD Vance and Peter Thiel stage their Handmaid's Tale coup. So keep waiting for that apology from "progressives" and I will keep waiting for my apology from the right wing for ruining American politics in the 20th and 21st centuries.
We disagree. In today's NYT is a long interview of Gretchen Whitmer (who I like). In the whole interview all she talks about is women. Ezra had to ask her twice to deal with men's issues, and she couldn't.
Twice he had to ask her. Why? What does this mean about our country?
And here is the thing for us: We are 50-year Democrat voters who will never vote Democrat again. We can literally "feel" the put-downs, like in your comment, of conservatives. And we won't be any part or even close to any part of that. And to argue that conservatives "look down" on liberals is not compelling. Those talk radio nuts use name calling, but it is not the same thing as what big city leftists do...not close.
We do disagree, and I think it's absolutely nuts to believe that the bile that has flowed out of right wing media into rural America for all my life is somehow irrelevant, but that what "big city leftists" do by writing snotty letters to the Times is somehow an intolerable assault on the sensibilities of rural folk. You can vote for whomever you like, of course, but abandoning the Democratic party is the worst possible strategy if what you want is an American society with greater opportunity for all, including white rural men. If you actually care about the concrete issues more than the endless posturing and finger-pointing and concern-trolling, I urge you to take part in an initiative like the Rural New Deal (created by progressive groups). If you care about the future of men and boys in America then look to the recommendations of the American Institute for Men and Boys (founded by Richard Reeves), which are, in every sense of the word "progressive" -- more gender diversity in early education, more focus on age-and-gender specific learning styles and rates, more college alternatives in the form of trades training and apprenticeships, more male mental health professionals... etc. I urge you to stop wallowing in your "feelings" of real and imagined put downs, roll up your sleeves and do something useful. Voting for Republicans is the opposite of that.
just for the record. I am not imaging the put-downs, and they aren't put-downs of me. They are Progressives' put-downs of conservatives that bother me because the Democratic party never used to do that. The "Progressive party" does. That's our reason for not voting for Harris, along with her absolutely crazy ideas about policing that she touted in 2020.
I think we had better end our conversation. Feeling a little too personal.
Not sure what the deep and valid hurts are from progressive policies and ideas. Sure, people don't like to see others adopting moral standards that they don't agree with, but one can always just choose not to be so judgemental. Maybe some employees had to go to a DEI class. Employees have always hated those, but they usually wake up fine the next day Just guessing here --- ???
I believe you are trivializing the world of conservatives and of people so desperate for relief and for the American dream. It's not just employees going to DEI classes, although they see themselves (validly) falling behind in our country and having to listen to someone lecture them that they are inherently racist (even though they know they aren't).
Take them and their concerns and fears for their children much more seriously than you are doing. You are just writing all of the struggles in their lives off. That is a Progressive, not a Democratic, belief. Democrats used to fight for these same people, but then Progressives stopped that. So they turned Republican. For good and valid reasons.
Oh for heavens sake. YOU are the one ones trivializing the concerns and fears of this segment of the population by somehow pretending that it's all some kind of nasty progressive "vibes" that have caused their pain. Again - please cite a single "progressive" policy that stopped "fighting for these same people". Was it the progressive focus on education to better prepare people for the industries of the future? Was it the progressive focus on universal (yes - that means "everybody") health care? Please be specific.
You didn't really process Brooks' article or German's article.
My daughter and I used to go to our college basketball games....did this for years. Fascinating thing to watch the refs. A call against the home team would result in very reasonable people leaping from their seats yelling and screaming. Bias! Wrong! Unfair! Rigged!
And a foul against the opponent? silence.
My daughter and I, even when she was an adolescent, would just look at each other with humor; I don't know how many times one or the other of us said: "looked like a foul to me!"
And I see you as yelling about fouls to the home team, but totally seeing fouls for the visitors.
Try being a liberal. A liberal takes each issue separately, not as part of a "team." A liberal can see both sides, equally, and will allow data to be "processed" in their minds.
Liberalism is lost. It is gone. Replaced by teams who distort reality to fit their team's motto.
I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make. As far as "referees", what I think is undeniable about American history since Reagan is that economic policies invented and advocated by Republicans have generated economic decline in rural America. Equally undeniable is that Republicans now try to blame this trend on progressives with convoluted "explanations" that are disconnected from facts and rational analysis. Your arguments here (and Brooks' in his columns) focus obsessively on a tiny sliver of strange activity at elite colleges as the core of "progressivism", ignoring the vast areas of liberal Democratic and progressive endeavor that are entirely about making the material circumstances of ALL American lives better, healthier, safer, more productive and more collegial. You guys need to stop worrying about 20 year olds flirting with Foucault and start focusing on the policies that will actually improve things.
Late to the party an d short on time. On the off chance this wasn’t pointed out: love the idea but one of the items must be foreign policy related. With ongoing wars in Europe and the ME, ever escalating tensions in the pacific and trump threatening the future of nato focusing purely on domestic issues is just a luxury we don’t have. You can be vague about it but one of the seven bullet points must address America’s role in the world.
Your advice on a short list of clear policy proposals seems far too sensible for any politician, R or D, to actually take.
I do have 2 quibbles about your list: 1) on "rescind" the tax cuts, presidents do not have the power to rescind laws. It should be "seek the repeal of the Trump tax cuts" (or "allow them to expire" since most of them will expire). The semantic difference matters to policy wonks mostly, but that a candidate recognizes the limits of executive authority is a message to them that would be a good one to send.
2) on a national law to restore Roe - you can't change a constitutional interpretation with a law, particularly not one of the type that occurred in Dobbs where the Court said this issue is not a federal one. It would take an amendment to the constitution (highly unlikely, and certainly not fast) or finding a provision in the constitution that empowers the federal government to override state laws on an issue the SCT just said quite emphatically is a matter of state law (I'm skeptical there is one - the SCT is getting tougher on commerce clause arguments and we're not really in Wickard v Filburn territory any more, for example). It's not as inspiring to pro-choice voters to say "I will do everything in my power as president to maximize women's access to reproductive rights" as your suggestion is, but it's a more realistic promise that recognizes the limits of federal and executive authority.
Now, most voters (on either side) probably don't want to hear that their candidate recognizes limits to his or her authority, but it's actually important that we have political leaders who do. In a close election, getting people who care about that to vote for you might matter and it is pretty clear Trump doesn't care much about that.
The "matter of state law" part of Dobbs is dicta as far as I remember from reading it. The holding of Dobbs was to overturn Roe's enshrinement of abortion as a fundamental(ish) right. Just because it no longer enjoys special constitutional protection doesn't mean it's off limits for federal legislation. Based on my surface-level understanding, it would be very easy to write a federal law that preempts state regulation of healthcare providers who perform abortions as affecting interstate commerce in the aggregate. Whether that invites SCOTUS to narrow the commerce clause power is a potentially important collateral concern, but I certainly think Congress can pass a law that effectively reinstates the Roe/Casey status quo under current doctrine.
My reading of Dobbs is different, but time will tell. I think a clear message from it (and from the Court more generally) is reinvigorating federalism by more clearly delineating the line between areas of state and federal power. I don't see what federal power exists that the Court would see as allowing federal preemption of state regulation of medical practice as to what procedures are permissible. And the Court historically has often been dubious about the "if you want federal money, you have to accept federal overriding of state laws" and this Court is even more likely to be so. So while a Harris administration plus D House and Senate might pass a bill like you describe, I suspect it wouldn't survive a challenge. We may find out who's right (and if Harris wins, then I suspect she will have a D House and Senate, at least at first and by relatively narrow majorities).
On taxes, how about: "Make the tax system fair by cutting the payroll tax in half and eliminating both the tax break for capital gains income and the payroll tax break for high earners. This would be revenue-neutral, ensure that everyone pays their fair share and increase the average worker's take-home pay by more than $2,000 each year."
Matt's proposal is good policy. This is better policy and better politics. Repubs have won the tax argument for years by saying "They want higher taxes . We want lower taxes." Let's instead make the question "should high earners pay a higher tax rate than low earners?" Then can move on to deficit vs level-of-taxation later. Can't do both at the same time. (For clarity: eliminate cap gains tax break means treat capital gains same as ordinary income and leave ordinary income rates in place. Eliminate payroll tax break for high earners means apply the Social Security portion of FICA to all earned income, rather than only first $162k. (Principled approach would be to make it progressive and apply to all income, but too confusing.) Cut payroll tax in half means cutting in half the FICA rate for employees, while leaving the employer rates the same.)
These are good suggestions. Kudos on the funny line re. detailed policy proposals: “People sometimes blame me for this, though my recollection is that it’s Ezra Klein’s fault.”
If elected I doubt that Harris would have the inclination or ability to reduce the deficit. Both parties are spending like drunks. The core problem, in my opinion, is not income but outgo. Additional revenue will solve nothing.
"She locked down near-universal elite support with a ruthless 36-hour operation that does not seem to have involved making an embarrassing promises to anyone"
I'd be interested in reading about the ruthless 36-hour operation. At my level I didn't see any ruthlessness and I am curious.
It’s funny, there were leaks everywhere until the Sunday that Biden sent out the tweet ending his candidacy, now the leaks are very rare. Suggests a level of coordination and discipline that many wouldn’t associate with Democrats.
Do not encourage Harris to smile. That Miss America smile does not aid in making her look presidential. She's been looking a lot more serious and that's all to the good. Just by nature she'll smile enough. I like the Etch A Sketch metaphor too. I hope it works. You left one thing off the agenda. You cannot escape the budget deficit. Somehow that needs to be brought up and serious energy needs to be put into devising a plan that deals with it without devastating Medicare and Medicaid. It's a big problem and it would be nice if people worked on that before it comes back to bite us in the butt really hard.
👏👏Matt, excellent article. Hope Kamala & strategic partners read it. The BBB was overstuffed and poorly planned. Take child care: The writers gave no Federal Guidelines and no Regulations. Block Grants are ineffective in building National Nursery Schools or Crèches. The States are all over the place in terms of Certification, bathrooms, refrigerators, ratio of children to teacher and rates of pay. It would be much more effective in this campaign to say something like we will certainly be studying how best to provide more affordable childcare.
We completely agree with you the best way to answer Immigration questions. Show how Biden Admin has expelled more than FT, the numbers are going down and emphasize the BI-Partisan Border Bill that Trump zapped. For consideration after the election, since the 3 biggest hurdles for an immigrant to become a Citizen are Paperwork, high cost and answering questions about US History in English. Perhaps the paperwork and cost could be reduced for DACA people and Green Card Holders.
Love the list. Her nomination totally focuses us on the future.
Expansion of Item 2. Split small businesses from big corporations. Harris could come out in support of American small businesses by saying she will retain Section 199A.
That tax benefit applies to lots of businesses in swing states that are support the auto industry and other big businesses. My view is that these business owners are not MAGA but will vote Trump because of taxes. My unscientific anecdotal observation is they are susceptible to the fear mongering about Bernie’s tax proposals from the 2020 primary.
It could be a very patriotic idea to support American small businesses, the job creators for the country. It would help people with incomes over $400,000 and possibly upset the left. But I think it could draw the attention of white men in the Midwest.
In a way, this reads as a bigger mea culpa than Matt's essay on Biden's age. For a long time, one of Matt's serious contentions was the lack of policy discussion in Republican party politics distinguishes it from the Democratic party's intellectual internal politics. Now his stance is that Harris' contribution to policy discourse in 2020 involved ideas so actively harmful to American voters that it would be better to not have any of this in the first place. It's good to see someone change his mind, but it's a big shift and I think readers in the comments (and a few critics like DeBoer) are underrating it.
Just saw an ad here in NC (it was on Peacock streaming, but, I presume targeted to NC) from Future Forward PAC and was very pleased to see they get it with their messaging. All about winning over NC swing voters. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/25/harris-future-forward-ads/
I think the problem with running as one thing in primary and someone else in the general is
1. Your strongest supporters may get disillusioned
2. The modern media environment makes escaping your past harder
It is very state dependent. You can see from the USDA “SNAP Work Requirements” page that the language is not geared toward career counseling or education or the long term but purely on how to meet the 80 hours per month work/work equivalent requirement, which can include unpaid or volunteer work..
https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements
Some states are very restrictive about educational activities being permitted for waiver purposes - but overall the federal policy is not focused on a career path or meaningful work, per se.
Harris will not win unless she can say, and honestly mean it, that every conservative has a valid point about how their lives have been affected, negatively, by Progressive policies and ideas. And, further, that a huge percentage of Progressives look down their noses at conservatives.
Adopt Trump's views and Vance's views. they are responding to deep and valid hurts that 50% of Americans experience. Don't trash them. That only sends the same message that the Progressives care about other people, but not them.
....or lose.
Signed...two 50-year Democrat voters.
As soon as Trump and Vance say and honestly mean that all American lives have been negatively affected by Conservative policies and ideas. Or do you have some theory as to why Progressive harm is real and Conservative harm is not?
Joe--if you read the Brooks article, pay particular attention to the comments. They display a horrible view of conservative voters. Full of hostility. Not one bit of understanding of them. So different from how Democrats used to see them, and respect them.
If you subscribe to the NYT read German Lopez's Newsletter from July 25. It's profound about what has happened to conservative white American workers.
Read David Brooks' column "What if we are the bad guys here?" from the NYT about a year ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/opinion/trump-meritocracy-educated.html?searchResultPosition=1
Finally, we have driven all over Trump country in the past 12 years, camping and hiking. Drive through those towns, and you see the despair from a world that no longer values men making livings for their families with their backs.
Trump voters see the advantages Progressives' children, who often go to expensive private schools, have over theirs.
Trump voters, usually not the elites with plenty of money, are hurting. And yet, over and over they are looked down upon as rubes, violent-prone, gun-toting, idiots. This is what Progressives have done to the Democratic party. We used to advocate for and support people who are hurting because of our societal rules.
Democrats respected Republicans when Republicans were respectable. You are (and God knows David Brooks has made a career of) conflating economic, cultural and political phenomena into a desperate narrative that searches for some reason (any reason) to blame "progressive" politics for all the worlds' problems. I too have spent a lot of time in rural America and have plenty of Republican friends and relatives. I can assure you that "looking down" on others is not an exclusively "progressive" activity. Indeed, for decades the right wing has used multiple cable and talk radio networks to do almost nothing but tell ridiculous lies in the purplest prose about "liberals" and "progressives". This ocean of bile has washed away institutions that once protected and unified people across political divides, including most notably churches and civic institutions that were politics-free zones. This was not "conservatives" being victimized by "liberals", it was Republicans (egged on by Libertarians) deliberately choosing hatred as a political strategy. It was Roger Ailes understanding and then selling to 70s era right-wingers the very specific idea that rural and working class hesitation about the civil rights movement, the womens liberation movement and eventually the gay rights movement could be harnessed, turned into resentment, then anger, then hatred and then used to make money and win elections. And the right wing has never looked back. The strategy has been and forever will be "when in doubt, blame everything bad on 'liberals'," then confuse people with hand-wavy abstractions when it comes time to do the actual accounting for which policies had what effect. It was not "progressives" who created the China shock that moved millions of manufacturing jobs out of the midwest. That was Republican business owners. It's the progressive wing of the Democratic party that wanted to slow the process down to protect workers. It's also the progressive wing that wants to re-industrialize these areas with investments in all manner of green industry and energy production. It's not progressives' fault that the deep south and parts of the plains have firearm mortality rates 3x-5x higher than California or New York, or that the highest rates of drug overdose mortality are in states bordering the Ohio River. Right wing media knows this, so rather than trying to address the issues honestly, it will run nonstop content about a homeless person pooping on the street in San Francisco or a drag queen reading a book (!!) to children, because surely that must be the root of the opioid crisis and de-industrialization... It's so predictable, so counterproductive and so tiresome. If you read the German Lopez piece you will understand his point (following Hochschild) that the resentment of white people about other races "cutting in line" is a statistical delusion -- a failure to distinguish between the phenomenon of de-industrialization / globalization impacting some sectors of the economy and economic growth in other sectors. Asian American men have not seen spectacular median wage growth as white male wages have stagnated somewhat because of some kind of progressive "trick". Median wages for women of all races have not climbed faster than median wages for men because "the world no longer values men making livings for their families." That's pure drivel. I defy you to find any mention from any mainstream American progressive (Bernie, Warren, AOC, etc.) or any mainstream liberal of any era (Biden, Obama, Clinton) that makes any argument remotely related to that absurdity. What we are witnessing is a generations-long transition of the economy from modes of production dominated by men to modes of production in which physical strength and stamina are simply not as important. Women are even more capable of competing with men in these arenas, and they are winning. Women are getting college educations and advanced degrees at higher rates, they are entering the managerial and professional ranks in greater numbers, and the "conservative" solution is... what? Slow them down and put them back in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant so men won't feel bad about themselves? Never going to happen until JD Vance and Peter Thiel stage their Handmaid's Tale coup. So keep waiting for that apology from "progressives" and I will keep waiting for my apology from the right wing for ruining American politics in the 20th and 21st centuries.
thank you for taking the time to respond.
We disagree. In today's NYT is a long interview of Gretchen Whitmer (who I like). In the whole interview all she talks about is women. Ezra had to ask her twice to deal with men's issues, and she couldn't.
Twice he had to ask her. Why? What does this mean about our country?
And here is the thing for us: We are 50-year Democrat voters who will never vote Democrat again. We can literally "feel" the put-downs, like in your comment, of conservatives. And we won't be any part or even close to any part of that. And to argue that conservatives "look down" on liberals is not compelling. Those talk radio nuts use name calling, but it is not the same thing as what big city leftists do...not close.
We do disagree, and I think it's absolutely nuts to believe that the bile that has flowed out of right wing media into rural America for all my life is somehow irrelevant, but that what "big city leftists" do by writing snotty letters to the Times is somehow an intolerable assault on the sensibilities of rural folk. You can vote for whomever you like, of course, but abandoning the Democratic party is the worst possible strategy if what you want is an American society with greater opportunity for all, including white rural men. If you actually care about the concrete issues more than the endless posturing and finger-pointing and concern-trolling, I urge you to take part in an initiative like the Rural New Deal (created by progressive groups). If you care about the future of men and boys in America then look to the recommendations of the American Institute for Men and Boys (founded by Richard Reeves), which are, in every sense of the word "progressive" -- more gender diversity in early education, more focus on age-and-gender specific learning styles and rates, more college alternatives in the form of trades training and apprenticeships, more male mental health professionals... etc. I urge you to stop wallowing in your "feelings" of real and imagined put downs, roll up your sleeves and do something useful. Voting for Republicans is the opposite of that.
just for the record. I am not imaging the put-downs, and they aren't put-downs of me. They are Progressives' put-downs of conservatives that bother me because the Democratic party never used to do that. The "Progressive party" does. That's our reason for not voting for Harris, along with her absolutely crazy ideas about policing that she touted in 2020.
I think we had better end our conversation. Feeling a little too personal.
Best to you. Dan
Not sure what the deep and valid hurts are from progressive policies and ideas. Sure, people don't like to see others adopting moral standards that they don't agree with, but one can always just choose not to be so judgemental. Maybe some employees had to go to a DEI class. Employees have always hated those, but they usually wake up fine the next day Just guessing here --- ???
See my comment in response to Joe.
I believe you are trivializing the world of conservatives and of people so desperate for relief and for the American dream. It's not just employees going to DEI classes, although they see themselves (validly) falling behind in our country and having to listen to someone lecture them that they are inherently racist (even though they know they aren't).
Take them and their concerns and fears for their children much more seriously than you are doing. You are just writing all of the struggles in their lives off. That is a Progressive, not a Democratic, belief. Democrats used to fight for these same people, but then Progressives stopped that. So they turned Republican. For good and valid reasons.
Get to know Trump voters.
Oh for heavens sake. YOU are the one ones trivializing the concerns and fears of this segment of the population by somehow pretending that it's all some kind of nasty progressive "vibes" that have caused their pain. Again - please cite a single "progressive" policy that stopped "fighting for these same people". Was it the progressive focus on education to better prepare people for the industries of the future? Was it the progressive focus on universal (yes - that means "everybody") health care? Please be specific.
You didn't really process Brooks' article or German's article.
My daughter and I used to go to our college basketball games....did this for years. Fascinating thing to watch the refs. A call against the home team would result in very reasonable people leaping from their seats yelling and screaming. Bias! Wrong! Unfair! Rigged!
And a foul against the opponent? silence.
My daughter and I, even when she was an adolescent, would just look at each other with humor; I don't know how many times one or the other of us said: "looked like a foul to me!"
And I see you as yelling about fouls to the home team, but totally seeing fouls for the visitors.
Try being a liberal. A liberal takes each issue separately, not as part of a "team." A liberal can see both sides, equally, and will allow data to be "processed" in their minds.
Liberalism is lost. It is gone. Replaced by teams who distort reality to fit their team's motto.
I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make. As far as "referees", what I think is undeniable about American history since Reagan is that economic policies invented and advocated by Republicans have generated economic decline in rural America. Equally undeniable is that Republicans now try to blame this trend on progressives with convoluted "explanations" that are disconnected from facts and rational analysis. Your arguments here (and Brooks' in his columns) focus obsessively on a tiny sliver of strange activity at elite colleges as the core of "progressivism", ignoring the vast areas of liberal Democratic and progressive endeavor that are entirely about making the material circumstances of ALL American lives better, healthier, safer, more productive and more collegial. You guys need to stop worrying about 20 year olds flirting with Foucault and start focusing on the policies that will actually improve things.
Reminding you: 50 years straight voting Democrat.
Late to the party an d short on time. On the off chance this wasn’t pointed out: love the idea but one of the items must be foreign policy related. With ongoing wars in Europe and the ME, ever escalating tensions in the pacific and trump threatening the future of nato focusing purely on domestic issues is just a luxury we don’t have. You can be vague about it but one of the seven bullet points must address America’s role in the world.
Your advice on a short list of clear policy proposals seems far too sensible for any politician, R or D, to actually take.
I do have 2 quibbles about your list: 1) on "rescind" the tax cuts, presidents do not have the power to rescind laws. It should be "seek the repeal of the Trump tax cuts" (or "allow them to expire" since most of them will expire). The semantic difference matters to policy wonks mostly, but that a candidate recognizes the limits of executive authority is a message to them that would be a good one to send.
2) on a national law to restore Roe - you can't change a constitutional interpretation with a law, particularly not one of the type that occurred in Dobbs where the Court said this issue is not a federal one. It would take an amendment to the constitution (highly unlikely, and certainly not fast) or finding a provision in the constitution that empowers the federal government to override state laws on an issue the SCT just said quite emphatically is a matter of state law (I'm skeptical there is one - the SCT is getting tougher on commerce clause arguments and we're not really in Wickard v Filburn territory any more, for example). It's not as inspiring to pro-choice voters to say "I will do everything in my power as president to maximize women's access to reproductive rights" as your suggestion is, but it's a more realistic promise that recognizes the limits of federal and executive authority.
Now, most voters (on either side) probably don't want to hear that their candidate recognizes limits to his or her authority, but it's actually important that we have political leaders who do. In a close election, getting people who care about that to vote for you might matter and it is pretty clear Trump doesn't care much about that.
The "matter of state law" part of Dobbs is dicta as far as I remember from reading it. The holding of Dobbs was to overturn Roe's enshrinement of abortion as a fundamental(ish) right. Just because it no longer enjoys special constitutional protection doesn't mean it's off limits for federal legislation. Based on my surface-level understanding, it would be very easy to write a federal law that preempts state regulation of healthcare providers who perform abortions as affecting interstate commerce in the aggregate. Whether that invites SCOTUS to narrow the commerce clause power is a potentially important collateral concern, but I certainly think Congress can pass a law that effectively reinstates the Roe/Casey status quo under current doctrine.
My reading of Dobbs is different, but time will tell. I think a clear message from it (and from the Court more generally) is reinvigorating federalism by more clearly delineating the line between areas of state and federal power. I don't see what federal power exists that the Court would see as allowing federal preemption of state regulation of medical practice as to what procedures are permissible. And the Court historically has often been dubious about the "if you want federal money, you have to accept federal overriding of state laws" and this Court is even more likely to be so. So while a Harris administration plus D House and Senate might pass a bill like you describe, I suspect it wouldn't survive a challenge. We may find out who's right (and if Harris wins, then I suspect she will have a D House and Senate, at least at first and by relatively narrow majorities).
On taxes, how about: "Make the tax system fair by cutting the payroll tax in half and eliminating both the tax break for capital gains income and the payroll tax break for high earners. This would be revenue-neutral, ensure that everyone pays their fair share and increase the average worker's take-home pay by more than $2,000 each year."
Matt's proposal is good policy. This is better policy and better politics. Repubs have won the tax argument for years by saying "They want higher taxes . We want lower taxes." Let's instead make the question "should high earners pay a higher tax rate than low earners?" Then can move on to deficit vs level-of-taxation later. Can't do both at the same time. (For clarity: eliminate cap gains tax break means treat capital gains same as ordinary income and leave ordinary income rates in place. Eliminate payroll tax break for high earners means apply the Social Security portion of FICA to all earned income, rather than only first $162k. (Principled approach would be to make it progressive and apply to all income, but too confusing.) Cut payroll tax in half means cutting in half the FICA rate for employees, while leaving the employer rates the same.)
These are good suggestions. Kudos on the funny line re. detailed policy proposals: “People sometimes blame me for this, though my recollection is that it’s Ezra Klein’s fault.”
I'd add marijuana reform
If elected I doubt that Harris would have the inclination or ability to reduce the deficit. Both parties are spending like drunks. The core problem, in my opinion, is not income but outgo. Additional revenue will solve nothing.
The core problem is both spending and revenue.
"She locked down near-universal elite support with a ruthless 36-hour operation that does not seem to have involved making an embarrassing promises to anyone"
I'd be interested in reading about the ruthless 36-hour operation. At my level I didn't see any ruthlessness and I am curious.
It’s funny, there were leaks everywhere until the Sunday that Biden sent out the tweet ending his candidacy, now the leaks are very rare. Suggests a level of coordination and discipline that many wouldn’t associate with Democrats.
Silent weapons for secret wars, Slp . . . .
Do not encourage Harris to smile. That Miss America smile does not aid in making her look presidential. She's been looking a lot more serious and that's all to the good. Just by nature she'll smile enough. I like the Etch A Sketch metaphor too. I hope it works. You left one thing off the agenda. You cannot escape the budget deficit. Somehow that needs to be brought up and serious energy needs to be put into devising a plan that deals with it without devastating Medicare and Medicaid. It's a big problem and it would be nice if people worked on that before it comes back to bite us in the butt really hard.
8. "Strengthen and lead the alliances that have helped keep America safe in a dangerous world for 80 years."
("Trump wants to abandon them!")
👏👏Matt, excellent article. Hope Kamala & strategic partners read it. The BBB was overstuffed and poorly planned. Take child care: The writers gave no Federal Guidelines and no Regulations. Block Grants are ineffective in building National Nursery Schools or Crèches. The States are all over the place in terms of Certification, bathrooms, refrigerators, ratio of children to teacher and rates of pay. It would be much more effective in this campaign to say something like we will certainly be studying how best to provide more affordable childcare.
We completely agree with you the best way to answer Immigration questions. Show how Biden Admin has expelled more than FT, the numbers are going down and emphasize the BI-Partisan Border Bill that Trump zapped. For consideration after the election, since the 3 biggest hurdles for an immigrant to become a Citizen are Paperwork, high cost and answering questions about US History in English. Perhaps the paperwork and cost could be reduced for DACA people and Green Card Holders.
Love the list. Her nomination totally focuses us on the future.
Expansion of Item 2. Split small businesses from big corporations. Harris could come out in support of American small businesses by saying she will retain Section 199A.
That tax benefit applies to lots of businesses in swing states that are support the auto industry and other big businesses. My view is that these business owners are not MAGA but will vote Trump because of taxes. My unscientific anecdotal observation is they are susceptible to the fear mongering about Bernie’s tax proposals from the 2020 primary.
It could be a very patriotic idea to support American small businesses, the job creators for the country. It would help people with incomes over $400,000 and possibly upset the left. But I think it could draw the attention of white men in the Midwest.