I think Slow Boring readers will appreciate the “Deciding to Win” report that Simon Bazelon (who has written for us in the past) wrote with our friends at Welcome PAC. It’s not 100 percent what I would write, but I’m generally aligned with his takes, and I think it’s the best and most comprehensive treatment of where Democrats are and what needs to be done.
I’ll say more about it in my first answer to this mailbag, and again next week.
But I wanted to flag one counter view, articulated by Ryan Cooper in the American Prospect and Brian Beutler on “Politix,” that what really matters is not issue-positioning but the information environment.
Clearly there’s something to that. Voters do not have direct, unmediated access to reality, and it’s not hard for me to think of episodes in the recent past when coverage decisions about Hillary Clinton’s emails or the withdrawal from Afghanistan had a big impact on politics.
But there’s a kind of “where’s the beef?” about this.
One of the big points of Slow Boring Thought is that voters don’t care very much about climate change. I don’t think anyone can deny that there has been extensive investment in creating a media ecosystem designed to try to get people to care more about climate change. The result is that the Democratic Party puts much more weight on climate change in its own policymaking, has cultivated a new cohort of powerful climate-focused donors, and comes across as less focused on the short-term material welfare of the American people.
Is that an information ecosystem success story, or a failure? I’m not at all against progressive donors investing in content any more than I’m against candidates getting good at making vertical video or going on podcasts. But it matters what you say!
Logan: Will dems approval rating improve as we get closer to the midterm as you have candidates running on actual policy ideas?
I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do think it raises one of the big known unknowns of the 2026 cycle: Will Democratic Party congressional leaders write a policy agenda comparable to Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America or Nancy Pelosi’s Six for 2006 initiative?
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