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Message to Democrats: embrace economic bread-and-butter issues to win | Matthew Karp and Dustin Guastella
OpinionDemocratsMessage to Democrats: embrace economic bread-and-butter issues to winMatthew Karp and Dustin GuastellaOur study finds that working-class voters respond better to economic policies than identity-based, activist-driven campaigns Tue 9 Nov 2021 06.20 ESTAs he set about disembowelling Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill last month, Joe Manchin paused to offer some cheerful advice for outraged progressives. “[A]ll they need to do,” said the West Virginia senator, “is elect more liberals.”There was something slightly perverse about Manchin counseling the leftwingers whose policy agenda he was helping tear apart: he sounded like a burglar recommending a home security system as he made off with his loot. And yet his point is undeniable: if progressives hope to gain more leverage in American politics, they must win more elections.If Democrats return to centrism, they are doomed to lose against Trump | Samuel MoynRead moreOf course, this is just what they have been trying to do. In the wake of the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign, an energetic cohort of progressives crashed into city halls, state legislatures, and Congress itself. In the House, “the Squad” may be the most visible avatar of this new leftwing politics, but the larger Progressive Caucus has grown from under 28% of all House Democrats in 2008 to over 43% today.Still, as the fate of Biden’s bill shows, leftwing influence on national politics remains limited. That’s because progressive gains have not been not responsible for changing the larger balance of power. By and large, progressives have replaced sitting Democrats in deep-blue districts. They’ve failed to prove themselves in contested seats, and have yet to win a major statewide election. Without expanding the Democratic base, progressive advances reflect a larger trend away from the party’s working-class constituency and toward educated urban professionals.American progressives aren’t alone facing this problem. Over the last half-century, center-left parties all around the world have suffered massive defections from their once-sturdy working-class electoral base. As labor unions have declined in size and power, and economies have shifted away from high-wage blue-collar jobs, millions of working-class voters have moved toward parties of the right. And though pundits obsess over the “white working class”, the phenomenon now clearly extends across racial lines, with non-white, non-college-educated voters breaking significantly toward Republicans since 2012.But in order to win more elections, especially in swing districts, both Democrats and progressives must win more working-class votes. The numbers here are just overwhelming: in 2020, well over 60% of American voters did not have college degrees. In Congress, over four-fifths of House seats – and 96 of 100 Senate seats – are chosen by electorates where 60% of the voters lack college degrees. For progressives to accept an inevitable decline in working-class support is to accept their position as a permanent and punchless minority.So how can progressives win back the working class? Here opinions divide sharply. Some liberal analysts argue that an increasingly professional-class Democratic party must restrain its own instincts to suit the preferences of less educated voters. These “popularists” urge liberal candidates to build their campaigns around the party’s safest, best-liked ideas, like lowering prescription drug prices, while tactically sidestepping less popular positions on immigration or police reform. In response, a range of progressive critics contend that such compromises with working-class opinion are either politically ineffectual – since candidate messaging doesn’t matter very much – or morally untenable, since, they say, it would mean replaying Bill Clinton’s rightwing racial pivot in the 1990s.In conjunction with Jacobin magazine and the public opinion firm YouGov, our team at the Center for Working Class Politics decided to dig deeper into this question than an ordinary survey would allow. Rather than polling voters on isolated policies or beliefs, we designed an experiment to test how potentially Democratic working-class voters respond to electoral matchups. By asking voters to choose between hypothetical candidates, who presented a range of personal characteristics and campaign messages, we were able to develop a richer portrait of voter attitudes at the ballot box. And by presenting this survey to a representative group of 2,000 working-class voters in five swing states – a much larger sample of this demographic than appears in most polls – we were able to focus on these voters in much greater depth.What we learned in the “Commonsense Solidarity” report may confound both sides of the ongoing debate. The strongest candidates in our sample made bread-and-butter issues their top priorities – jobs and the economy, rather than immigration and racial justice – and spoke about those priorities in universalist, rather than “woke”, identity-centered rhetoric. These differences were even more pronounced among the working-class voters that Democrats and progressives have struggled most to reach, including rural and small-town voters and voters in blue-collar jobs.In this sense, our findings support the view that working-class voters are sensitive to candidate messaging, and that progressives who want to win their support should put economic issues at the center of their campaigns. But does that mean that Democrats must either tack hard to the center, or abandon their effort to win back a fundamentally “conservative” working class, as some analysts have argued? Not at all.The voters in our sample preferred candidates who endorsed Medicare for All to those who supported an anodyne centrist alternative, “increase access to affordable healthcare”. And given a choice of political messages, they chose a populist, Bernie Sanders-style soundbite – pitting working-class Americans against wealthy elites – somewhat more often than a moderate, Biden-style message.Nor does our study suggest that Democrats must “play it safe” by avoiding discussions of racism. Working-class respondents strongly backed candidates who promised to “end systematic racism” over those who offered a bland pronouncement of “equal rights for all”. They did not punish female or non-white candidates – in fact, black candidates performed significantly better than any other group in our sample, even among white voters.Working-class voters will not punish candidates for advocating for civil rights. But when Democrats frame this struggle in a way that overshadows their commitment to delivering bread-and-butter goods, and when they adopt an activist-inspired, identity-based rhetoric, they are likely to lose working-class votes. Our survey turned up some very large gaps on this front. A populist candidate with a central focus on the economy earned 63% support, for example, while moderates and “woke” progressives with a focus on immigration or racial justice won under 50%.Combining a populist message with a candidate from a working-class background, meanwhile, stretched these gaps even further. While a moderate military veteran – the kind of Democratic candidate often celebrated by party leaders and the press – received just 51% support, a progressive populist teacher earned over 65%. Strikingly, these preferences were shared not only by Democratic voters, but the critical swing demographic of working-class independents.To be sure, a choice between hypothetical candidates is different from an actual campaign but unlike most other studies of this kind (using surveys or election data), our experimental approach allowed us to isolate the characteristics that either attract or repel working-class voters to a particular candidate.Last week’s elections offered one demonstration of what happens when workers’ issues are ignored. In Virginia, Democratic ex-governor Terry McAuliffe was lured into a culture war with Republican Glenn Youngkin, with Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved claiming headlines in the campaign’s final weeks. As economic issues disappeared from view, McAuliffe – a paradigmatic “woke” moderate with no ability to reframe the debate – found himself swamped by working-class defections. Where Biden had won Virginia voters without college degrees by seven points, McAuliffe lost them by 20.Joe Manchin’s arithmetic is unyielding. If progressives want to exert real power in American politics, they cannot be content to replace establishment liberals in deep-blue seats: they must also prove themselves as an alternative to the cautious centrism that swing-district Democrats prefer. The good news is that this doesn’t have to mean sacrificing bold economic policies or evocative populist rhetoric. But if progressives continue to insist that political messaging is inconsequential, or that it is impossible to adjust their program to the priorities of the working-class electorate, they risk condemning themselves to permanent irrelevance.
Matthew Karp is an associate professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor at Jacobin. Dustin Guastella is director of operations for Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia
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If Biden doesn’t pass the climate bill, it will be the betrayal of a generation | Daniel Sherrell
OpinionClimate crisisIf Biden doesn’t pass the climate bill, it will be the betrayal of a generationDaniel SherrellFailure to pass Build Back Better would disillusion a generation of voters, and potentially fracture the Democratic party Tue 9 Nov 2021 06.16 ESTLast modified on Tue 9 Nov 2021 13.10 ESTDeep into the night last Friday, long past the hour when most Americans had ceased paying attention, Congress passed the $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill otherwise known as the BIF. Its passage was heralded as a victory for President Biden, and the daily news chyrons dutifully marked a point in his column. But beyond the horserace myopia of the Beltway – and especially among young people – the news came tinged with the threat of disaster. Because for those of us interested in sustained human civilization on a habitable planet, the most relevant fact about the BIF is this: without consequent passage of the clean energy and social welfare bill known as Build Back Better, the BIF alone will exacerbate the climate crisis.AOC says Republican who posted sword attack video ‘cheered on’ by partyRead moreThe reasons are manifold. The bill is riddled with exemptions and subsidies for corporations like ExxonMobil, whose lobbyists were caught bragging about their role in shaping the text. It invests in highways, bridges and airports that – in the absence of an aggressive drive to electrify cars and planes – will only add to emissions from the transportation sector. And the climate funding it does contain is focused not on drawing down emissions but on preparing Americans for worsening floods, fires and superstorms. If this is all we get, the message to young people is clear: Exxon will continue to be allowed to drown your homes, but not to worry, the government is investing in some life vests. Good luck!When it comes to passing the Build Back Better bill, the handful of extremist, Wall Street-backed Democrats who have obstructed it for months are now asking for something they have done very little to earn: trust. It would be one thing if congresspeople like Josh Gottheimer and Abigail Spanberger gave the impression of fully understanding the gravity of the climate crisis and pulling out all the stops to make a commensurate response politically possible. Instead, they come off as narrow-minded political animals, too blinkered by the game to see the world around them burning.It seems doubtful that any of them have read – much less internalized – the findings of the latest IPCC report. If she had, Representative Spanberger might have registered the irony in her insisting that Biden “be normal and stop the chaos”. As if it weren’t precisely those ideas long considered “normal” – massive fossil fuel subsidies, economic austerity, energy market deregulation – that are leading us straight into planetary chaos.Even more worrisome, their excuse for obstructing Build Back Better seems less than fully genuine. They insist they need to see an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office on how the bill would affect the national deficit. But they seemed little bothered when the CBO made it known that their BIF would expand it by $256bn. They also seem intent on ignoring the many analyses – including several from the treasury department itself – showing that Build Back Better would actually reduce the deficit. And that’s not to even mention the fact – still rarely mentioned, somehow! – that climate disasters cost Americans $1.9tn in 2020 alone.Even if their concern about the deficit is genuine, it’s grounded in a fundamental misapprehension of contemporary macroeconomics, which is undergoing a revolution in how it understands national debt and deficit spending. It’s as if they made some sort of superstitious pact, circa 1980, to admit no additional research from either economists or climate scientists. Even the former chief economist of the CBO made it clear that their insistence on a CBO score is ludicrous. “This is a really important package that will change people’s lives, and that should be the guiding principle,” she said in reference to Build Back Better. “The 10-year window [for CBO scoring] is arbitrary. Aiming for deficit neutrality is arbitrary – it’s arbitrariness on top of arbitrariness.”But despite all of these red flags, most of the self-styled House “moderates” – with a few notable exceptions, including Spanberger – have promised to eventually vote for Build Back Better in its current form. It is hard to overstate how much rests on that single-paragraph promise. A failure to pass Build Back Better would, at this point, amount to a betrayal so large it would disillusion an entire generation of young voters, and potentially fracture the Democratic party itself. The muted applause for BIF would be completely drowned out by recriminations, and the party would stumble into the midterms in open civil war, having failed to pull us back from the brink of worldwide catastrophe.Maybe Abigail Spanberger would hold on to her seat, but she would probably find herself isolated and ineffectual in a Republican Congress, desperately clinging to her fantasy of “normality” as she cranked up the A/C on another blistering summer day.Meanwhile, President Biden’s legacy would be sealed. For all his adulation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he would have failed to live up to the one test that cemented his predecessor as a hero. It’s worth remembering that FDR passed the New Deal over the violent protestations of Wall Street bankers, some of whom tried to stage a coup to replace him. Biden faces a similar test on Build Back Better: can he discipline the wealthiest and most dangerous industry in history, who will stop at nothing to make the “moderates” kill the bill? Can he wrest the helm of history from the fossil fuel executives, who would just as soon watch it all go down in flames?If he fails to pass Build Back Better, China’s taunts will ring true, though for the wrong reasons. The American political system will have proven itself incapable of passing extremely popular policies to address the climate crisis – not because it was too democratic, but because it was never democratic enough.With stakes this high, it’s no wonder the Progressive Caucus leader, Representative Pramila Jayapal, asked each “moderate” to look her in the eye as they signed their name to the Build Back Better promise. That look might have contained the anxiety of my entire generation. Not only our fear of being played, not only our dread of inheriting a squandered planet, but our ongoing hope – despite all evidence to the contrary – that our leaders may actually choose to lead.
Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist
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If Democrats return to centrism, they are doomed to lose against Trump | Samuel Moyn
OpinionJoe BidenIf Democrats return to centrism, they are doomed to lose against TrumpSamuel MoynBiden was once touted as the ‘New FDR’. That ambition is fast dying – as are Democrats hopes of remaining in power Mon 8 Nov 2021 08.56 ESTLast modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 15.52 ESTCongress’s passage on Friday of Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill would ordinarily have been a cause for celebration. But there is a good chance it was the beginning of the end of his presidency. After all, the bill’s final days marked a new consensus around a centrist set of economic remedies, chosen out of fears of what will supposedly happen when progressives with a transformative agenda exercise too much influence on the Democratic party agenda.Only 10 months ago, Biden came into office with great expectations – but greater terrors. Even more apparent at the start than now, Biden’s presidency has been defined by fear rather than hope. With the assault on the Capitol earlier in the month, the culmination of a four-year deathwatch for American democracy, the emergency could hardly evaporate overnight. With Donald Trump temporarily ousted, his replacement also drew 1930s comparisons. The question “is he or isn’t he?” had been asked of Biden’s predecessor for four years. To redeem the country from the fascist, was Biden going to be Franklin Roosevelt?Like FDR, Biden led Democrats who have rightly stressed economic transformation for the sake of the poor and vulnerable but also for the angry and disaffected voters of the stagnating middle. But unlike Roosevelt, Biden’s coalition is fragile and fissures emerged to threaten his success almost from the start – fissures that broke it apart definitively last week even in the midst of Biden’s infrastructure victory.Other causes were forced to the margins along the way. Biden subordinated even critical fixes to American democracy, like reforms of courts and elections, to the economic agenda. As for his immigration policies, which mostly resembled the disgusting ones of prior presidents, they were treated with a partisan silence, provoking rage among the few principled enough to demand fewer cruelties and restrictions no matter who is imposing them. But Biden got a pass because enough agreed with the priority to address the economic reasons for Trump’s breakthrough, which are undeniable.Yet in comparison to Roosevelt’s first “100 days” – which saw 15 major bills and gave the early phase of every presidency its name – Biden’s first 100 days were bogged down. A Covid-19 relief and stimulus bill was passed, adding $1.9tn in emergency spending to the $2.2tn of the first such bill signed by Trump in March 2020. But the real hopes fell on the big-ticket measures for “infrastructure” and welfare that Biden resolved to pursue separately. After all, the American Rescue Plan was only meant to be a temporary stopgap for an American society beset with deeper ills even beyond those that the virus laid bare.The game was on. At first the debate seemed to be about how costly to make the bills and how to fund them. This was especially true for the American Families Plan, which was supposed to take steps towards an American welfare state – including by making relief measures for children in earlier bills permanent. Progressives in Congress, understanding the risks, were lauded for an early victory in August, refusing to back the first narrower infrastructure bill if Democrats abandoned the second more ambitious social spending bill. Centrists tried to tag progressives as the obstructionists. But the mainstream narrative remained that by holding infrastructure hostage, progressives were wisely keeping centrists from returning to form.Even as it became clearer and clearer that the Democratic centrist senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and like-minded Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives, were doing damage to the ambition of the bills, a breakthrough after generations of Democratic austerity and neoliberalism still seemed possible. Then came the critical event that allowed for the centrist breakthrough last week: the election for Virginia governor last Tuesday.In an electoral shock, Republican Glenn Youngkin won – and, more important, grizzled and uncharismatic Democratic party sage Terry McAuliffe, who had once held the governor’s office, lost. Even though McAuliffe’s reputation for decades has been one of a centrist on economics – he served as Bill Clinton’s campaign chair in the 1990s – centrists scored a narrative victory. Wasn’t it because of progressive excess that voters were turning on the party? “Wokeness derails the Democrats,” one headline ran. Lawmakers in Washington scurried to marginalize progressives by passing the infrastructure bill, with some progressives voting no, and others citing promises that Democrats will still continue on to the welfare measures.The rush to judgment was peculiar. It is not until 2022 that the Democrats will need to show something for themselves, and there was no reason to abandon the social spending plan. Suddenly, however, progressives holding tough – since some Republicans supported the infrastructure plan – were dispensable.The new narrative was that Youngkin won because of antiracist rhetoric many Democrats have adopted, along with elites branded as “out of touch” by other elite commentators. Centrists saw a golden opportunity to call for a return to their moderation, including in containing spending.In an extraordinary op-ed, the New York Times called for an “honest conversation” about abandoning progressive goals across the board – including the economy, where Americans demand “bipartisan solutions” that respect inflationary risks and refuse to spend very much. The truth was that Americans had gotten bipartisan neoliberalism for decades, but no matter. One Twitter commentator snarkily noted that it was hardly surprising that “the lessons from Tuesday’s election” matched the “ideological goals” neoliberal elites “had before the election and decades before that. What are the odds!”Democrats blew by the possibility that McAuliffe’s failures were mainly his fault, and due less to “critical race theory” that allegedly was already reshaping public education than to an abandonment of parents forced to endure school closures for years (itself an economic issue). Either way, the critical error is assuming that voters rejected progressive economic policies, which are popular across the board.Even before the events the other day, Democrats defined what was in Build Back Better – their slogan and the name of the welfare bill – downwards. Free college was stripped out early, family and medical leave – standard across industrialized democracies for decades – were killed late, and Biden kowtowed to centrists who demanded a more marketized version not just of environmental concern but of funding government across the board, as taxes hikes were reversed. With its fate no longer hostage to infrastructure, in spite of written promises from some centrists that progressives reportedly exacted at the last minute, there is no reason to be optimistic about the final bill’s fate.An infrastructure bill for a country in decay and decline was much needed and has itself eluded Democrats for decades. Though cut in half to win acceptance, its $1tn for a grab bag of spending – much focused on transport – is nothing to trivialize. But rarely in history has a greater looming defeat been snatched from the jaws of a political victory as the other day.In the first year of Biden’s presidency, Democrats agreed that the only alternative to barbarism is, if not socialism, some modicum of economic change. Many agreed that opening acts of Barack Obama’s administration had been fatefully insufficient. Now, despite the lessons of the Obama presidency, Republicans are set to recapture one house of Congress after two years – or both. By contrast, FDR gained seats in both houses after delivering substantive change, and won the presidency three more times.Of course, even if progressives were to secure a welfare package and retain influence in their party, Trump – or an even more popular Republican – could still win the presidency. But this outcome is a near certainty if the Democrats return to centrist form – as seems the likeliest outcome now.
Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale and the author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World
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Democrats ‘thank God’ for infrastructure win after state election warnings
Biden administrationDemocrats ‘thank God’ for infrastructure win after state election warnings
Concerns party will face disaster in midterm elections next year
Trumpism without Trump: how Republicans won in Virginia
0Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellySun 7 Nov 2021 10.59 ESTLast modified on Sun 7 Nov 2021 13.56 ESTVoters in Virginia and New Jersey this week sounded a serious warning to Democrats, key players in the Biden administration and Congress said on Sunday: the party needs to get things done or it faces disaster in midterm elections next year.Biden hails ‘monumental step forward’ as Democrats pass infrastructure billRead moreThe energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, said “we thank God” something was done on Friday night: a $1tn infrastructure deal sent to Joe Biden’s desk by the House.Three days after Democrats lost a race for governor in one state Biden won comfortably and barely held the other, House centrists and progressives managed to come together, with some Republican support.Biden hailed a “monumental step forward” and a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America”. He also said “the one message that came across” in Virginia and New Jersey was: “Get something done.”Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, echoed his boss, telling NBC’s Meet the Press the American people “wanted to see more action in Washington. They wanted to see things move more quickly, and three days later, Congress responded.”But Democrats punted again on the second half of the president’s domestic agenda, the 10-year, $1.75tn Build Back Better package to boost health and social care and to seek to mitigate the impact of the climate crisis.Granholm told CNN’s State of the Union: “I think that the Democrats in the House got the message very loud and clear. Pass the bill and pass the second part too, because these contain things that everyday people care about.“The governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, ran on the phrase ‘Fix the damn roads’. And that’s what this bill does. It fixes the damn roads. It fixes the bridges. It gets broadband to real people. It fixes your homes so that they’re not leaking energy.”Granholm also said the infrastructure bill did not help with childcare and other “costs of living for real people”. That, she said, is the job of Build Back Better, which now awaits analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, a measure demanded by centrists.The New Jersey centrist Josh Gottheimer told CNN he and his allies wanted to make sure the bill was “fiscally responsible and paid for”. He said he was confidant it would pass but dodged when asked repeatedly if his group would vote no if CBO analysis differed from White House and congressional estimates.In New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, won by an unexpectedly narrow margin. Taking a page from Donald Trump’s playbook, the Republican Jack Ciattarelli has refused to concede.In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, suffered a devastating defeat by Glenn Youngkin, a businessman who kept Trump at arm’s length while campaigning on culture war issues including the place of race in education.Asked if Youngkin could have been beaten had major legislation been passed in Washington before election day, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia, told CNN: “I wish the House would have moved earlier.”Warner also said voters needed to be told what was in the Biden bills, rather than what they cost. The bills’ cost is regularly condemned by Republicans – and by Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who remains a key obstacle in the Senate.The White House adviser Cedric Richmond told Fox News Sunday Manchin was “a lot more conservative and everybody sees that but he’s been a willing partner to come to the table with constructive dialogue. And we’re confident in where we will go with our Build Back Better framework. We’re optimistic we’re going to get it done. And the truth is we need to get it done.”Richmond also rejected Republican claims that increased spending will add to inflation. Granholm said the administration saw current inflation as “transitory”.Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland and a Republican moderate with presidential ambitions, told CNN Biden had “nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory”.The infrastructure bill “should have been an overwhelming win back in August”, Hogan said. “And I think [Biden] should not have let it get sidetracked by the progressives in the House. I think that was bad for Joe Biden. I think that was reflected in the election results because I think they misread the mandate.Joe Biden’s best hope of retaining power is Trump, the ogre under the bed | Michael CohenRead more“You know, Joe Biden won a very narrow election by winning swing voters and they’re not where the progressive caucus is, I can assure you, and the vast majority of Americans are not for the second bill.”Progressives contend otherwise. In tweets on Saturday, the Washington state congresswoman Pramila Jayapal highlighted news from the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow and said: “This is EXACTLY why we need the Build Back Better Act. We will deliver climate action – for our communities, future generations, and our planet.”She also retweeted the Rev William Barber, the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign. He said: “My prayer is that Congress will keep its word and vote to pass Build Back Better, because if not, that political betrayal will be a political crime and integrity breach.”Such a failure, Barber said, “would abandon over 140 million poor and low-wealth people who make up 43% of the nation and 30% of the voting population”.That, he said, “could split the Democratic party in ways that may be irreparable”.TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsUS domestic policyDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatenewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Joe Biden’s best hope of retaining power is Trump, the ogre under the bed | Michael Cohen
OpinionJoe BidenJoe Biden’s best hope of retaining power is Trump, the ogre under the bedMichael CohenDespite Friday’s win in Congress, little is going right. But with the ex-president around, anything is possible Sun 7 Nov 2021 02.30 ESTLast modified on Sun 7 Nov 2021 04.06 ESTIf there is one truism of modern American politics, it’s that good fortune is a fleeting thing. Almost a year to the day after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, his Democratic party was dealt a body blow on election day 2021.In Virginia, former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe lost to Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, as the Republicans won every statewide race and took control of the state’s house of delegates. In New Jersey, incumbent governor, Phil Murphy, barely held on in a state that went for Biden by 16 points. Meanwhile, the powerful Democratic president of New Jersey’s state senate was defeated by a Republican truck driver who spent a mere several thousand dollars on his campaign.Does this mean that the bloom is off the rose for Biden and America is on its way to another Trump presidency? It’s too soon to tell, but it does not look great for Democrats, even though the House passed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Friday. While social media sizzled with red-hot takes on why the party underperformed in Virginia and New Jersey, the reality is more boring. For 40 years, the candidate of the president’s party has gone down to defeat in Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial election. From that perspective, McAuliffe losing in Virginia was the expected outcome.Moreover, the approval ratings of the president have a trickle-down effect on party candidates and, right now, Biden is deeply unpopular. His approval ratings, at this point in his presidency, are the lowest in modern polling history, save one past president – Donald Trump. That’s not good company to keep.Since the end of August, Biden has been buffeted by one bad news story after another. The image of ignominious US withdrawal from Afghanistan cast a pall over his presidency and punctured his aura of competence. As Covid vaccinations levelled off, cases again began to rise, forcing many Americans, who believed just a few months ago that the pandemic would be soon over, to go back to masking and social distancing. Meanwhile, in Washington, Democrats bickered among themselves about the size of Biden’s “build back better” agenda, and the president who ran on his ability to get things done in Washington looked like a helpless bystander.In short, this White House has not had a good story to tell for months and in Virginia and New Jersey they paid the price. But if there is one silver lining for Democrats, it’s that midterm elections are a year away and there is time to right the ship.For all the sturm und drang in Congress over the president’s massive, multitrillion spending packages, a second major bill is also likely to pass, joining the infrastructure bill.The second would devote an estimated $1.75tn to much-needed social safety net programmes, including universal pre-kindergarten subsidies for childcare, an expansion of Medicare benefits for senior citizens and Medicare coverage for the poorest citizens and, potentially, billions for the country’s first paid family and medical leave programme. Half-a-trillion dollars are also budgeted for fighting climate change. Passage of both bills will not only thrill Democratic voters but could spur further economic growth.While September was the worst month for Covid cases and deaths since vaccines became readily available, there was a significant decline in new cases in October. More than 70% of eligible adults are now fully vaccinated and vaccines for children aged five to 11 were rolled out last week.However, the combination of strong economic growth, a return to pre-pandemic normality and legislative success will not guarantee political success. Indeed, the same traditional political forces that contributed to Democratic underperformance on Tuesday will weigh on the party next year.Historically, the party in power gets shellacked in midterm elections, losing an average of 26 House seats. With Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the House, it’s hard to imagine the party outrunning that history. And as much as Biden’s legislative agenda might seem like a winner for Democrats, voters don’t always reward the party in power for getting stuff done, particularly if they don’t feel it. The 63 House Democrats who lost their seats in 2010, months after the passage of Obamacare, can attest to that.Democrats also face a larger set of structural problems: a constitutional system that favours small rural states (usually won by Republicans); a rival political party that is restricting voting rights and aggressively gerrymandering congressional maps to maintain power; and an energised Republican electorate.Ultimately, what should perhaps be most disturbing for Democrats about Tuesday’s elections is that their voters came out in droves, but they couldn’t overcome huge Republican enthusiasm.All this may change in 2022, when Trump will probably play a more prominent role and Democratic candidates can use him as a foil to attack Republicans. In fact, one of the likely reasons Youngkin prevailed in Virginia is that he successfully distanced himself from Trump and made it difficult for McAuliffe to link him to the ex-president. That may be harder to do for Republican congressional candidates, many of whom regularly boast about their support for Trump.Trump is likely to remain the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats – the living, breathing bogeyman under the bed who keeps their voters up at night. As much as Democrats may want to run on their legislative agenda, the spectre of Trump could be their most effective strategy for maintaining power and is probably Biden’s best hope for re-election. The structural impediments to electoral success will remain, however, particularly as Senate Democrats, led by West Virginia’s JJoe Manchin, seem unwilling to enact the kind of far-reaching political reforms that would undo them. Moreover, the Republicans’ unabashed assault on democratic norms and voting rights is likely to continue. The short-term road ahead for Democrats is rocky.Still, as John Maynard Keynes famously quipped, in the long run we are all dead and if Trump is the path to Democratic success, so be it. After all, there is one other important truism of all politics – winning is better than losing.
Michael Cohen’s most recent book, co-authored with Micah Zenko, is Clear and Present Safety
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Both/And review: Huma Abedin on Clinton, Weiner and a political life
BooksBoth/And review: Huma Abedin on Clinton, Weiner and a political lifeThe close aide to Hillary Clinton has written a tale spliced with pain but blind to her boss’s weak spots
Abedin: Kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assault
Lloyd GreenSun 7 Nov 2021 02.00 ESTLast modified on Sun 7 Nov 2021 02.02 ESTIn 2015, Hillary Clinton’s brains trust deliberately elevated the stature of the “extreme” Republican contenders, the “pied pipers”, Donald Trump included. On election night in 2016, Clintonworld stared into the abyss.In Trump’s Shadow: David Drucker surveys the Republican runners and riders for 2024Read more“It was sheer disbelief,” Huma Abedin writes in her new memoir. “More like shock.”Clinton, Abedin as campaign vice-chair and other aides failed to grasp that Trump was spearheading a movement, his mien his message. Clinton branded half of his supporters “deplorables”.Not surprisingly, in her memoir Abedin shows a blind spot to Clinton family shortcomings. When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, for example, “it seemed very likely” to her that it “was untrue”. Somehow, an intern who rose to become one of Hillary’s closest confidantes forgot that even before Lewinsky, Bill Clinton’s sexual conduct had almost throttled his White House ambitions. Bill and Hillary even appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes to salvage his viability.“I’m not sitting here some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” Hillary said.Not surprisingly, as Hillary’s so-called “second daughter”, Abedin has a problem coming to grips with an immovable likability deficit that cost her boss both times she ran for president.“Why was HRC not likeable?” Abedin asks. “This was particularly difficult to understand for those who knew her, since as far as we were concerned that was a quality she had in abundance.”Others have plumbed such waters – and found Clinton wanting. Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post, for example, a Pulitzer Prize winner, portrayed Hillary sporting a “foul mouth” and being loathed by the agents who protected her. After members of her Secret Service detail overheard Chelsea Clinton calling them “pigs”, Leonnig wrote, the first daughter was reminded that their job was to “stand between you, your family and a bullet”.Chelsea reportedly responded: “Well, that’s what my mother and father call you.”Abedin does not discuss how, out of office, Hillary scooped up windfalls in the commodities market and easy millions in Wall Street speaking fees, all while doing her best impersonation of Mother Teresa.Clinton’s second run for president tarnished her image. In December 2017, a Gallup poll pegged her favorability at 37%. But unlike Mandy Grunwald, an adviser to both Clintons, Abedin refuses to admit that Hillary has foibles.According to Grunwald, Clinton could sound like she “DOESN’T think the game is rigged” against normal Americans, mustering only recognition that the “public thinks so”. Said differently, Clinton conveyed obliviousness to the Great Recession of 2008-09, its casualties and anxieties.In April 2015, nearly half of the US self-identified as working- or lower-class. Between November 2007 and late 2016, white Americans in that bracket lost more than 700,000 jobs.Abedin describes sitting with Clinton in Iowa, watching Trump “ramble incoherently about himself”. She captures Clinton saying: “I just don’t get it.” Similarly, Abedin mocks Bernie Sanders’ call for a “revolution” and glosses over the fact that Clinton only beat the Vermont senator to clinch the nomination in early June 2016, more than a week after Trump wrapped up the Republican nod.“With each contest, she methodically racked up the number of delegates she needed to secure the nomination,” Abedin writes. That’s pure spin. It was supposed to be a coronation. They didn’t plan on winning the Iowa caucuses by a razor-thin margin or getting walloped in New Hampshire, where Clinton won on her first go-round.A youth-driven movement helped propel Sanders’ rise. Aspiration and grievance counted. The bankers had gotten their bailouts. Sanders supporters were staring at a future bleaker than their parents had known. Clinton had gone from the “beer track” candidate of 2008 to the pick of the wine drinkers, the coastal establishment. And yet, according to Abedin, defeat by Trump still came as a bolt from the blue.Both/And lets the reader play voyeur and counselor too. Abedin delivers the skinny on her courtship by, marriage to and traumatic estrangement from the former congressman Anthony Weiner. She shares that they attended couples’ therapy, and that he possessed darker secrets than she first thought.She also describes how an unnamed senator shoved his tongue down her throat and pinned her against a couch while the pair were in his apartment for late-night coffee. Abedin writes that she repressed memories of the event until they came rushing back amid Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, when the supreme court nominee was accused of, and denied, sexual assault.Asked by CBS if the senator had committed a sexual assault, Abedin paused.“Did I feel like he was assaulting me in that moment?” she told Nora O’Donnell. “I didn’t, it didn’t feel that way. I was in an uncomfortable situation with a senator and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”‘A xenophobic autocrat’: Adam Schiff on Trump’s threat to democracyRead moreThis does not appear to be the final word. Members of the Senate worry about who else the unnamed senator may have abused. Philippe Reines, a former Clinton aide, says it is up to Abedin “alone to decide what to share, with whom, how and when”.Abedin’s eye for style asserts itself throughout her memoir – even as she deals with how her husband made damaging headlines. In May 2011, she woke up in Buckingham Palace and surveyed the room. Her “long, fitted gown for the evening’s white-tie dinner hung on the bathroom door”. An “elegant chestnut-brown writing desk” stood at the “foot of the bed”. The same weekend, Weiner alerted his pregnant wife to his sexting habits. Weiner went to prison but he and Abedin are not completely estranged.Both/And is also a story of Abedin’s life before and outside politics. She tells of being born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of spending most of her youth in Saudi Arabia, a father and mother who held doctorates, of family ties in the Middle East, the subcontinent and the US. It is the strongest part of the book, a tale of an immigrant, of an upward arc.
Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds is published in the US by Scribner
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